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Drivers & Software

deksman2
Adept II

GL702ZC - Wattman doesn't exist in drivers?

The GL702ZC laptop has a desktop grade RX 580 inside with 4GB VRAM and a desktop Ryzen 1700.

I was wondering, why isn't Wattman showing up in any of the Adrenaline drivers under Global settings and does AMD plan to do something about this?

I have supplied a picture of what my Adrenaline drivers look like (I'm running the latest ones).

This laptop seems to be a real success, but we need Wattman to undervolt the GPU on the VRAM as well as a core.

Latest MSI Afterburner can only be used to undervolt the core clocks (I was able to get a stable -93mV across all workloads, and even -100mV works sometimes), however, MSI Afterburner does not offer VRAM undervolting (which I think is needed, because running 2000 MhZ at 1V seems a bit high... we might be able to get away with a lower voltage on the memory and further decrease temperatures and power draw (not to mention allowing us to reduce voltages on other P states as well).

Maximum temperatures with -93mV are in the area of 73 - 75 degrees Celsius - which is of course a lot better than 85-88 degrees C without undervolting... and of course, it helps keep the laptop fans in check too.

Also, having Wattman in drivers for this GPU would remove the need from constantly fiddling with MSI Afterburner, as Wattman is also a program specifically designed to work with AMD hardware (giving us better control over it).

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1 Solution

I imagine because Wattman can be used to Overclock GPUs which is pretty much prohibited by Laptop manufacturers. Laptops are not engineered to be Overclocked in any way, otherwise it could end up damaging the Laptop.

Wattman is meant to be used on a Desktop that has no restrictions while Laptop do have restrictions. Need to remember, your RX-580 is a Laptop GPU not a Desktop GPU. It was made to run in a laptop under the laptop's specs.

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17 Replies

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There was a reply in that thread saying that Wattman is not for laptops...

but, that doesn't make particular sense considering that the GL702ZC has

desktop grade hardware... also, why prohibit use of Wattman on mobile in

the first place?

the GPU would still benefit from undervolting.

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I imagine because Wattman can be used to Overclock GPUs which is pretty much prohibited by Laptop manufacturers. Laptops are not engineered to be Overclocked in any way, otherwise it could end up damaging the Laptop.

Wattman is meant to be used on a Desktop that has no restrictions while Laptop do have restrictions. Need to remember, your RX-580 is a Laptop GPU not a Desktop GPU. It was made to run in a laptop under the laptop's specs.

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Except that Wattman is not only used for overclocking.

It's also meant for undervolting - which is what I'm primarily interested

in.

Laptop manufacturers often mess up the cooling, resulting in thermal

throttling at STOCK settings, and AMD admitted themselves they increased

the voltages to all of their GPU's from factory to improve yields.

Undervolting the GPU would result in much lower power expenditure and lower

temperatures.

Take my Ryzen 1700 CPU in the laptop for example.

It's original voltage was set to too high... 1.1875V at 3GhZ across all

cores.

I can easily undervolt the CPU to 1.05V and overclock it to 3.3 GhZ

(increasing performance by 10% and radically dropping power consumption and

heat emissions - my CPU is actually cooler by 10 degrees Celsius as a

result and 10% FASTER).

Point being, laptops can easily run overclocked and undervolted without

damaging anyhing... but it depends on the individual system.

For the GPU, I'm not interested in overclocking it as it has plenty of

juice and that would only bring minimal improvements even if it were done.

I want to undervolt the RX 580 on the core and VRAM to radically drop power

consumption.

I was already able to use MSI Afterburner to drop the core voltage by -93mV

stable across all workloads and it dropped my temperatures from 88 degrees

Celsius to 75 degrees Celsius at maximum load - and it also resulted in

much quieter fans.

I want wattman so I can undervolt the GPU VRAM in addition to the core

undervolt and see if I can drop power consumption further.

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I understand what you are saying. But if other users with Laptops see that Wattman is available, they may try to OVERCLOCK or change some other parameters on the GPUs causing unknown consequences with the laptop. In my opinion, I believe this is the reason why AMD doesn't make Wattman available for Laptops.

One of the Moderators here in AMD Forum could probably give the actual reason why Wattman is not included in Mobile Driver sets.

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If people don't understand how to use Wattman, they shouldn't use it on

laptops or on desktops. Plain and simple.

Actually, most people interested in laptop modifications would try to

undervolt their GPU's to increase efficiency and then see if they can

overclock within a given margin to observe how much performance they can

extract at same or lower power levels without over-stressing the hardware

and cooling... majority of the time, they usually settle on an undervolt.

Also, the argument that laptops would run hot is not especially valid,

considering that even desktops run at a high risk of overheating if

overclocked incorrectly - which has been done before.

If anything, desktops have a much higher failure rate in comparison to

laptops when it comes to such modifications.

Laptop users who do such modifications tend to be a lot more careful.

But again, we're talking about a laptop with desktop grade hardware and

drivers written for desktop (not laptop).

These are desktop RX 580 drivers... so I fail to see why Wattman is STILL

not showing up in drivers.

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Because the device ID of the GPU probably indicates that it's a laptop device ? Unfortunately, there is nothing more than can be done.

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Due to thermal issues, most laptops are not designed to support overclocking. Enabling Wattman on a laptop would enable BOTH under and overclocking, so it's disabled.

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Except that many laptops have a tendency to experience thermal throttling and hardware failures more often than not because OEM's don't design adequate cooling in the first place for STOCK clocks.

Wattman is needed in laptops to UNDERVOLT the GPU (without touching the clocks) on both core and memory.

Assuming that most people would just overclock the GPU in laptops without 0 regard for temperatures or power consumption is misguided at best.

Laptop users are far more cautious with such modifications and usually opt for undervolting.

Besides, if a GPU is over-stressed because someone ended up overclocking it, other issues would crop up long before hardware failure... too high temperatures which would easily shut down the OS, artifacting, and a myriad of other issues.

Besides, this is a desktop grade RX 580 using desktop drivers... not mobile drivers.

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That is not a desktop graphics chip...it is a cut-down Mobility graphics. There are differences. Laptops are not made to be overclocked.

Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC (Ryzen 7 1700, Radeon RX 580) Laptop Review - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

>>>> AMD Radeon RX 580 (Laptop) GPU - NotebookCheck.net Tech <<<

Series

Radeon RX 580 (compare) 2304 @ 1257 - 1340 (Boost) MHz

256 Bit @ 8000 MHz

Radeon RX 580 (Laptop) 2304 @ 1077 MHz

It's a desktop gpu chip modified to work in a laptop which is soldered to

the motherboard.

The main difference is that it's clocks are running 20% lower than the

desktop RX 580 with 4GB.

No real cut downs as far as hardware itself goes considering the actual

performance is about 10% below the desktop version (which is accounted with

the clock differential).

A real cut down would mean the chip has less ROP's for example, less stream

processors, etc. All of the hardware is basically the same as the desktop

RX 580 with 4GB except the clock frequency.

As for the argument that laptops were not meant to be overclocked... why do

people automatically assume overclocking when Wattman is concerned?

All I want is UNDERVOLTING enabled on stock clocks.

Also, laptops can EASILY be overclocked and withstand it... anyone who is

interested in laptop modding would first undervolt the hardware to improve

efficiency and get rid of thermal throttling that inept OEM's put in there

because they couldn't be bothered to design a proper cooling assembly for

the hardware in question, and then they might try overclocking - only if it

brings real performance difference for a marginal or no increase in

temperature or power consumption.

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Regardless...no laptop currently offers Wattman. If you want to explain your reasoning..explain it to the OEM. I'm sure they would be happy to explain it to you.

Recommendation:

AMD recommends using the graphics drivers provided by your notebook's manufacturer as the manufacturer may customize the drivers to support the built-in display and the features and functions specific to the notebook. Customized graphics drivers are available for download from most notebook manufacturer's web site.

If the current operating system is not the version originally installed on the notebook it may not meet all requirements and compatible graphics drivers may not be available. Please refer to the notebook manufacturer for supported operating systems and drivers.

AMD Mobility Radeon™ Graphics Driver:

AMD provides a reference for AMD Mobility Radeon graphics drivers with limited support for notebook specific features and functions. This is not intended to be used as a replacement for the notebook manufacturer's driver.

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Wouldn't make an ounce of difference even if I tried as OEM's can be rather stubborn like that and they stop releasing new drivers pretty much after the orginal ones were supplied on their website (except potentially the BIOS).

Also, using the original drivers as provided by Asus is a waste of time since they also don't have Wattman enabled.

Freesync is fully functional with the new drivers if one uses an express install, and I guess I will have to stick with MSI afterburner for the undervolt.

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fuzzy
Journeyman III

I found a work around to make wattman work.. installed current drivers, 18.3.4, radeon overlay and chill work but no wattman. Install msi afterburner and change a few settings, and apply.  Now open radeon and wattman should be available. Not all features work, but if you make custom profiles for each game, you are given full clock and voltage control in those menus. I think you can uninstall msi after, but I intend to leave it because you'll likely need it next time you update drivers.

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Finally! Not all heroes wear capes...

Can you tell me how you managed to pull this off? I installed MSI Afterburner (newest), but when I cap the temperature or clock and click apply, it jumps back to stock values immediately. I open Radeon Settings, but there's no WattMan either. Did you have to enable kernel-mode settings in Afterburner to make any significant changes? I really don't want to mess things up, I too am only after downclocking the notebook to make it more silent in late night gaming sessions.

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I got it:  after installing MSI afterburner, and playing with it, it didnt seem to work because everything was enabled and no change to the lack of wattman, but after I fully disabled all options(and I mean, all, one by one) in the afterburner main settings page, then reenabled them as seen in the images(the enabling of the io settings had to happen first followed by afterburner restarting, then after reloading the afterburner disabled the ULPS and rebooted the pc) when it came back up, wattman had reappeared and afterburner is also working without conflict, though I intend to remove afterburner for now as my desired outcome was to have a working wattman again.

8sdV7ll.jpgzUf4srm.png

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thanks for this, I had wattman before my driver update, and after they rolled out 18.5.1 for some reason it disappeared and a little trial and error and I was able to get it to work on my hp omen 17-an012 w/ rx 580 8 gb.  I was losing my mind at the default clocks because the laptop runs 43-51c which is nice, but the performance is trash compared to a modest increase in power limit and a bump to the clocks. (about +20% power limit and ~+13% gpu clock in my case for optimal temperature in my environment)   Now I'm running ff15 4k edition again on highest w/ 48-60 fps and i'm only hitting 82-84c(90c TDP max) 

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